USCCB - (Office of Media Relations) - Priest Named Bishop Of St. Nicholas In Chicago For Ukrainians

Priest Named Bishop Of St. Nicholas In Chicago For Ukrainians

WASHINGTON (March 24, 2003) -- Pope John Paul II named Monsignor Richard Stephen Seminack, pastor of Holy Trinity Church, Carnegie, Pennsylvania, as Bishop of St. Nicholas in Chicago for Ukrainians. He succeeds Most Reverend Michael Wiwchar who was appointed Bishop of Saskatoon (Ukrainian), and Apostolic Administrator of St. Nicholas, in November, 2000.

Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, made the announcement.

Msgr. Seminack was born March 3, 1942. He attended Catholic elementary and high school in Philadelphia, St. Basil Seminary College in Stamford, Connecticut, St. Josaphat Major Seminary in Washington, D.C., and the Catholic University of America.

He was ordained a priest of the Archeparchy of Philadelphia for the Ukrainians on May 25, 1967.

Msgr. Seminack did graduate studies at the Oriental Institute in Rome, where he earned a degree in Eastern Canon Law in 1968.

Following the division of the Archeparchy of Philadelphia in 1983, he was incardinated into the newly erected Eparchy of St. Josaphat in Parma, Ohio, where he was appointed to his current post as pastor of Holy Trinity Church.

He has held several positions as a priest of the Eparchy of St. Josaphat, including diocesan director of religious education, diocesan consultor, member of the executive board of the priests' pension program, chairman of the diocesan priests' personnel board, chairman of the diocesan presbyteral council, staff member of the office of pastoral ministry, and commission of examiners for junior clergy.

The Diocese of St. Nicholas in Chicago for Ukrainians comprises all of the United States west of the western borders of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. It has a Catholic population of 10,000.